The music of the spheres. The mechanisms of reality, invisible and all around…
Loken could see it where the flames burned through, the endless churning mass of the warp at the heart of everything and the eyes of dark forces seething with malevolence. Grotesque creatures cavorted obscenely among heaps of corpses, horned heads and braying, goat-like faces twisted by the mindless artifice of the warp. Bloated monsters, their bodies heaving with maggots and filth, devoured dead stars as a brass-clad giant bellowed an endless war cry from its throne of skulls and soulless magiВcians sacrificed billions in a silver city built of lies.
Loken fought to tear his sight from this madness. Remembering the words he had thrown in Horus Aximand's face at the Delphos Gate, he screamed them aloud once more:
'I will not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I own only the empirical clarity of ImperВial Truth!'
In an instant, the walls of the dark temple slammed back into place around him, the air thick with incense, and he gasped for breath. Loken's heart pumped wildly and his head spun, sick with the effort of casting out what he had seen.
This was not fear. This was anger.
Those who came to this fane were selling out the entire human race to dark forces that lurked unseen in the depths of the warp. Were these the same forces that had infected Xayver Jubal? The same forces that had nearly killed Sindermann in the ship's archive?
Loken felt sick as he realised that everything he knew about the warp was wrong.
He had been told that there were no such things as gods.
He had been told that there was nothing in the warp but insensate, elemental power.
He had been told that the galaxy was too sterile for melodrama.
Everything he had been told was a lie.
Feeding on the strength his anger gave him, Loken lurched towards the altar and slammed the ancient book closed, snapping the brass hasp over the lock. Even shut, he could feel the terrible purВpose locked within its pages. The idea that a book could have some sort of power would have sounded ludicrous to Loken only a few months ago, but he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses, despite the incredible, terrifying, unimaginable things he had seen and heard. He
gathered up the book and clutching it under one arm, turned and made his way from the fane.
He closed the door and eased past the banner of the Seventh, emerging once more into the secluded darkness of the strategium.
Sindermann had been right. Loken was hearing the music of the spheres, and it was a terrible sound that spoke of corruption, blood and the death of the universe.
Loken knew with utter certainty that it was up to him to silence it.
The interior of the Isstvan Extremis facility was domВinated by a wide, stepped pyramid, its huge stone blocks fashioned from a material that clearly had no place on such a world. Each block came from some other building many of them still bearing architecВtural carvings, sections of friezes, gargoyles or even statues jutting crazily from the structure
Isstvanian soldiers swarmed around the base of the pyramid, fighting in desperate close quarters battle with the steel-armoured figures of the Death Guard. The battle had no shape, the art of war having given way to the grinding brutality of simple killing.
Tarvitz's gaze was drawn from the slaughter to the very top of the pyramid, where a bright light spun and twisted around a half-glimpsed figure surВrounded by keening harmonics.
'Attack!' bellowed Eidolon, charging forwards as the tip of the spear, assault units the killing edges
around him. Tarvitz forgot about the strange figure and followed the lord commander, driving Eidolon forwards by covering him and holding off enemies who tried to surround him.
More Emperor's Children stormed into the dome and the battle at the base of the pyramid. Tarvitz saw Lucius beside Eidolon, the swordsman's blade shining like a harnessed star.
It was typical that Lucius would be at the front, demonstrating that he would rise swiftly through the ranks and take his place alongside Eidolon as the Legion's best. Tarvitz slashed his weapon left and right, needing no skill to kill these foes, simply a strong sword arm and the will to win. He clamВbered onto the first level of the pyramid, fighting his way up its side through rank after rank of black armoured foes.
He stole a glance towards the top of the pyramid, seeing the burnished Death Guard warriors climbВing ahead of him to reach the figure at the summit.
Leading the Death Guard was the familiar, brutal form of Nathanial Garro, his old friend forging upwards with powerful strides and his familiar grim determination. Even amid the furious battle, Tarvitz was glad to be fighting alongside his sworn honour brother once again. Garro forced his way towards the top of the pyramid, aiming his charge towards the glowing figure that commanded the battlefield.
Long hair whipped around it, and as sheets of lightning arced upwards, Tarvitz saw that it was a
woman, her sweeping silk robes lashing like the tendrils of some undersea creature.
Even above the chaos of battle, he could hear her voice and it was singing.
The force of the music lifted her from the pyraВmid, suspending her above the pinnacle on a song of pure force. Hundreds of harmonies wound impossibly over one another, screeching notes smashing together as they ripped from her unnatВural throat. Stones flew from the pyramid's summit, spiralling towards the dome's ceiling as her song broke apart the warp and weft of reality.
As Tarvitz watched, a single discordant note rose to the surface in a tremendous crescendo, and an explosion blew out a huge chunk of the pyramid, massive blocks of stone tumbling in the currents of light. The pyramid shuddered and stones crashed down amongst the Emperor's Children, crushing some and knocking many more from its side.
Tarvitz fought to keep his balance as portions of the pyramid collapsed in a rumbling landslide of splintered stone and rubble. The armoured body of a Death Guard slithered down the slope towards a sheer drop into the falling masonry and Tarvitz saw that it was the bloodied form of Garro.
He scrambled across the disintegrating pyramid and leapt towards the drop, catching hold of the warrior's armour and dragging him towards firmer ground.
Tarvitz pulled Garro away from the fighting, seeВing that his friend was badly wounded. One leg was severed at mid thigh and portions of his chest and
upper arm were crushed. Frozen, coagulated blood swelled like blown glass around his injuries and shards of stone jutted from his abdomen.
Tarvitz!' growled Garro, his anger greater than his pain. 'It's a Warsinger. Don't listen.'
'Hold on, brother,’ said Tarvitz. 'I'll be back for you,’ 'Just kill it,’ spat Garro.
Tarvitz looked up, seeing the Warsinger closer as she drifted towards the Emperor's Children. Her face was serene and her arms were open as if to welВcome them, her eyes closed as she drew the terrible song from her.
Yet more blocks of stone were lifting from the pyraВmid around the Emperor's Children. Tarvitz saw one warrior – Captain Odovocar, the Bearer of the Legion banner – dragged from his feet and into the air by the Warsinger's chorus. His armour jerked as if torn at by invisible fingers, sparking sheets of ceramite peeling back as the Warsinger's power took it apart.
Odovocar came apart with it, his helmet ripping free and trailing glittering streamers of blood and bone as it took his head off.
As Odovocar died, Tarvitz was struck by the savВage beauty of the song, a song he felt she was singing just for him. Beauty and death were capВtured in its discordant notes, the wonderful peace that would come if he just gave himself up to it and let the music of oblivion take him. War would end and violence wouldn't even be a memory. Don't listen to it.